Three Couples, Three Years
by Audrianna13
Summary: Harry makes a wish on his 18th birthday at the same time his 15-year-old self does, too. The trio, Ginny, Neville, and Luna's souls have been sent back in time so that they can fix what went wrong the first time around.
1. Wishing on a Star

A/N: Hello all! This is my first fanfic...yeah...hope you like it. I'm really into time travel fics!

Disclaimer: Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight! *wishes* Did it work? *cracks eye open* DANG IT! THE HARRY POTTER SERIES STILL BELONGS TO J. K. ROWLING!

July 31, 1998

Harry stared into the flames of his birthday candles. He vividly remembered last year, and how so many other people had been here. But now they were gone. Remus, Tonks, Fred…they were all dead. He sighed.

"Harry?" Ginny asked softly, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Aren't you going to blow out your candles?"

"Yeah," Harry said quietly. "I was just…I remembered how last year, everyone was here, alive and whole, and now—"

"I know," she said, her voice trembling. "I keep expecting Fred to pop out from behind a bush and shout 'Surprise!' at you or someone, even though I know that he's…that he's—"

Ginny started crying softly. In the weeks after the Final Battle the Weasley family had suffered. Mrs. Weasley broke down in tears anytime someone mentioned Fred or she was reminded of him. Mr. Weasley always had an exhausted, defeated look on his face. George was locked up in his room; he had yet to come down. People had to bring him food as he never came down.

The oldest brothers of the family were taking it fairly well considering, but Percy felt terrible, as though it was his fault, that because he'd made a joke and Fred responded to it that it was his fault Fred died. Ron was more short-tempered than usual, but after a while he had accepted it somewhat, and he was working on not snapping at them. Ginny was rather like her mother, in that she cried.

Harry wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He stared into the flames again, then took a deep breath and blew out the candles.

Glancing out the window of Grimmauld Place, he saw the first star of the night.

_Star bright, star light_

_First star I see tonight_

_I wish I may, I wish I might_

_Have the wish I wish tonight_

Double power, Harry though grimly. He had blown out his candles and wished on the stars. He just wished that his wish really could come true.

_I wish there was some way we could change the past._

oOoOoOo

July 31, 1995

At almost the exact same time three years in the past, a fifteen-year-old Harry stared out his window onto the streets of Privet Drive. He picked up a piece of cake that one of his friends had sent him and slowly ate it, after blowing out the candles that were on the cake (he had filched a lighter from the kitchen).

He looked up into the night sky and smiled.

_Star bright, star light_

_First star I see tonight_

_I wish I may, I wish I might_

_Have the wish I wish tonight._

Harry sighed.

_I wish there was some way for me to know what is to come._

oOoOoOo

Fate made Her choice. She would turn back the clock and give them another chance.

oOoOoOo

July 31, 1998

Harry turned and grinned at Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Luna, the people that he had invited to his party (he had invited the whole Weasley family, but only Ron came to Grimmauld Place to celebrate with them, though his mum had been nice enough to bake a cake for Harry). It was a rather small celebration.

"Who wants cake?" Harry asked. "I have—"

He didn't finish. Something around them felt wrong. The air was heavy with magic. The others felt it, too.

"What the hell?" Ron cried out. "This can't be—it isn't Death Eaters, is it?"

"Impossible!" said Harry in return even as the magic built up around them. "They're all dead or in Azkaban, except for the Malfoys."

"Harry!" Hermione screamed suddenly as the magic grew to whole new levels. "This type of magic, it's familiar! It's—it feels like when we used the time-turner in third year!"

With a growing sense of dread, Harry indeed recognized the feel of the magic as it reached its peak.

_What is going on here? _Was his last thought before everything went black.


	2. A New Prophecy

A/N: Whoa! I'm finally updating this! Sorry this is such a short chapter...but never fear, all I have to do is actually type up the third chapter, and then I can post it. I'm going to do that today, hopefully. I'm also sorry that it took me so long to finally update this chapter. I needed to create a prophecy, but it wasn't cooperating with me, and thus it took me a while. It's kind of a lame prophecy, I know. Feel free to flame me. And it's so OBVIOUS! Ah well...hope you enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer: My creative juices are at a low, so I'm just going to say that I do not (and never will, sad face) own the amazing, fantastic, beautiful, wonderful, astonishing, astounding, dazzling, complex, impressive, moving, incredible, marvelous, prodigious, shocking, stunning, surprising, unbelievably supermegafoxyawesomehot idea that is Harry Potter. Which was created by J. K. Rowling, in case for some reason you've been living under a rock or something, and don't know that. Though how you would read a book series this *see above* without catching the author's name I do not know...a question to ponder on a rainy day. Which it was earlier today. Wow! This is totally random! I'm just supposed to be saying that I don't own HP! I'm going to stop now.

By the way, that is actually how Trelawney's first name is spelled. I looked it up in my fifth Harry Potter book. Of course, it's the American edition, so I dunno if they spelled it different in England or anything...

July 31, 1995

Sibyll Trelawney sat alone in her tower, sipping a cup of tea, when she suddenly went rigid. Her eyes rolled and she spoke in the harsh, raspy tones she had used only twice before.

"_The Child of Prophecy, Fate's Favorite, shall soon return...he has defeated the darkness that shadowed the land, but at the cost of too many…Fate allows her child to return and set right the wrong done…he shall awaken in this time in the midst of the eighth month before the second war begins, surrounded by the Phoenixes who fight the darkness…and five others shall come with him, the five most loyal who always believed in him – Horse, Dog, Otter, Hare, Bear…they shall fight the darkness again…those who were once enemies become allies, and allies may become friends…the Child of Prophecy returns…_"

The final word lingered in the air for a moment, the s drawn out into a hiss, and then Trelawney shook her head.

"Oh dear," she said softly, her voice slightly hoarse from the prophecy she had made. "I seem to have spilled my tea…"

The sole portrait in her room watched her for a moment to see if she did anything else of interest, then hurried off to tell Dumbledore of what had occurred.

Trelawney poured herself another cup of tea, humming slightly to herself, not realizing what she had just said, nor what was soon to come.

Change was in the air.

* * *

Review please!

NOTICE: I'm probably not going to be updating this too often because I'm mainly focusing on my other fic, **Grimmauld Place Reads Order of the Phoenix**. I will work on this one, though, just not as often. I promise to try as hard as I can not to abandon this, but I'm not going to swear anything that I might not be able to keep. Oh Merlin. What if I made the Unbreakable Vow? That'd be really bad...well, going off to type up the next chapter! Ta!


	3. Back in the Dust

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling does.**

**A/N: *peeks head cautiously out from behind a wall* **Eh heh hehe. Hiya! How are all of you - ***ducks several pieces of rotten fruit* **I'll take that as a 'What the hell have you been doing, making us wait for this so long?' Sorry. That was completely my fault...it's finally here now, though! I haven't given up!

* * *

Harry woke up with a groan, and heard Ron do the same from the bed next to him.

"What happened?" Ron rasped out, causing Harry to immediately grab his head in pain. Ron copied him a mere second later. It was like having a hangover, except multiplied by a couple of times.

"Where are we?" Harry asked quietly, grabbing his glasses off nightstand next to his bed and slipping them on. He then rolled off his bed and looked around the room.

"Well," said Ron slowly. "This looks like—"

"Our room in Grimmauld Place," Harry finished, still in that same quiet tone. "But…it's so dirty. Kreacher cleaned everything up, but now it looks like it..did…before…Oh Merlin!"

"What, what?" hissed Ron, jumping out of his bed and grabbing his wand.

"Ron," muttered Harry. "The last thing you remember – what was it?"

Ron knit his eyebrows together. It was hard to think of what had happened last. "We were all…at your party. Your eighteenth. You blew out the candles…you were about to cut the cake when – what _was_ that?"

"That magic," said Harry, his mouth dry. "The magic surrounding us before everything went black – Ron, it felt like a time-turner."

Ron spit out several swear words. "That shouldn't be possible! They were all destroyed when—!"

Harry quickly moved over to where Ron was standing and clamped a hand over his mouth. "There's a portrait in this room listening to every word we say," he whispered, and then removed his hand.

"Cast Muffliato on it, then," Ron whispered back. Harry did just that. "When are we, d'you think?"

"Summer before fifth year," said Harry promptly.

Ron looked startled. "How'd you come up with that?"

"The only time we spent here was before and during fifth year, and then that brief stint during what was supposed to be our seventh year," said Harry. "It's too dirty to be seventh year, because Kreacher cleaned it up only a few days after we got the story out of him. Also, you look to young – and short – to be seventeen."

Ron snorted at the short comment.

"It's not during the winter break of fifth year, because I don't have scars on the back of my hand," continued Harry, raising his right hand. "Thus, the only time left that it could possibly be is the summer before—"

Just then, the door burst open as Hermione and Ginny came into the room.

"Oi!" Ron said loudly, flushing. "We're not dressed or anything!"

"Oh, you're fine, Ronald," said Hermione, rolling her eyes. "You have pajamas on."

"And it's not like we haven't seen everything before," said Ginny. "Or fantasized about it…"

Harry blushed wildly as Ron spluttered incoherently.

"Anyway, do you two know what happened?" asked Hermione, a faint pink tinge to her cheeks.

Both boys shook their heads mutely, still red.

"Do you know when we are?" sighed Hermione. "I've narrowed it down to two options, but—"

"It's the summer before fifth year," interrupted Harry. "I don't have the scars from Umbit—Umbridge," he hastily corrected himself.

Hermione glared at him half-heartedly for almost using his nickname for Umbridge.

"Oh, go ahead and call her that," said Ginny. "That stupid old toad. I still can't believe her – Blood Quills, the Muggleborn Registration Committee – hah! Damn, she stills rubs me the wrong way, even if she's in Azkaban."

"Not yet," said Harry grimly. "She's teaching us this year…and it's not that I don't want to call the toad her _lovely _nickname, it's just that I don't want to accidentally slip up this year and call her that to her face…"

Ginny smirked. "I would love to do that."

"Gin," Harry sighed in exasperation. "You can't do that. You'd be in detention for _months._"

Ginny shrugged. "So? I can just hide out in the Room. Besides, she can't have _anything _on the Carrows."

The Golden Trio winced. They had heard many horror stories of the Carrows.

"We _are _starting up the D.A. again, aren't we?" asked Ginny, her eyes saying that she would personally kill Harry if he even thought of refusing – which he most certainly wouldn't.

"At the first opportunity," he promised grimly. "And this time we won't get caught, because we'll have someone who knows _everything _about – wait, is Neville here?"

"He'd never been to Grimmauld Place before you invited him to your –," started Hermione.

"No, I mean in this _time_," interrupted Harry.

Hermione frowned. "He's probably here, and maybe Luna too. They were at the party, so the likelihood of them being affected by the same thing that hit us is very high."

Harry nodded.

"_Tempus_," muttered Ginny suddenly. From her wandtip issued a thin stream of light that formed into numbers and letters: 7:20 a.m. on Sunday, August 17, 1995.

"Sweet Merlin," breathed Harry slumping on his bed. "We're really in the past…"

Hermione was berating Ginny for using her wand – _we're underage in this time, what if you get a warning from the Ministry?_ – as Ron sank down beside him.

"Wait," said Ron, breaking into Hermione's rant. "Why is it the seventeenth? The last thing we all seem to remember was Harry's party on the _thirty-first_."

Hermione frowned. "That's a good point," she said, and then started pacing. "Well, we've gone back three years. There are definitely four of us back, and three times four is twelve – but that doesn't make any _sense_, it's the _seventeenth_—"

"If we assume that Neville and Luna are back, then it would be three years times six people, which is eighteen. If you include July 31, then that makes eighteen days."

"I suppose that does make more sense," said Hermione. "I just wonder why we didn't arrive exactly three years in the past…"

"Maybe there's some cosmic force that doesn't allow whoever – "

"Or whatever," said Hermione.

"– whoever _or_ _whatever_ that sent us back to send us back _exactly _three years. Besides, I'm glad they didn't – I'd still be stuck at the Dursleys."

Hermione was nodding along with Harry's words. "That seems a little far-fetched, though," she said doubtfully.

"As farfetched as me killing Voldemort with an _Expelliarmus_?" asked Harry cheekily.

Hermione leaned over and smacked him on the head.

"Ow!"

"It's easy to forget how good you are at connecting dots sometimes," she said grudgingly after a moment.

Harry rolled his eyes, then said, somewhat offended, "Only _sometimes_? Oh, come on! Give me a bit more credit than _that_, will you? Who figured out that Hagrid told Quirrell about Fluffy? Who correctly guessed that Draco, that annoying little prick, was now a Death Eater and had a special mission assigned to him by Voldemort? And who figured out that Voldemort was after the Elder Wand, my Invisibility Cloak was one of the Hallows, and the Resurrection Stone was in the Snitch?"

Hermione opened her mouth to argue against this, and then closed her mouth, her brow furrowed. "All right," she admitted. "Those times were definitely in your favor for this argument."

Two loud _pop_s resounded through the room. Fred and George appeared, grinning identically, only to be on the receiving end of four wands.

"Whoa!" George yelped, holding his hands up.

"We come in peace," Fred stated, his hands raised along with his twin's.

There was a moment of complete silence in the room. The time travelers couldn't seem to take in what they were seeing. Intellectually, they had known that they were somehow inconceivably back in the past, but it was quite another thing to actually be confronted with the facts of that – namely, the facts that George had both ears and Fred was standing among them, hale, hearty, and most definitely alive.

The moment was broken when Ginny ran to Fred and wrapped him up in a big hug.

Fred was taken aback, but wrapped his arms around his only sister as she buried her head in his shoulder and started positively bawling.

"Oi, Gin?" he asked uncertainly, glancing at his twin. George shrugged. "What's going on?"

"F-Fred, Fred, oh Merlin," she sobbed out.

"Um…" George said uncertainly, glancing between the trio, with all their wands still outstretched and pointed at them, and Fred, who was patting Ginny on the back in a comforting manner and had a completely bewildered expression on his face. "Really, what's going on here?"

At the sound of George's voice, Ron finally tore his gaze from Fred and looked at the other twin. The three finally lowered their wands. "…it's…it's nothing, George."

Fred rolled his eyes. "Yes, Ronniekins, that's why Ginny here—"

"—is bawling her eyes out on Fred's shoulder," George continued, falling easily into their banter despite the rather odd situation.

"You know, Ron," Fred went on, in a rather conspiring manner.

"—you really suck at lying," the twins said together.

"No," Ginny sniffled. "He's right – it's nothing – I'm just being silly. I had – I had a bad dream, so I woke up Hermione and we came in here."

"Why?"

"Because Ron's the brother closest to my age and Harry knows what it's like to face down _him_," she said.

The twins shuddered.

"Merlin," Fred said. "You had a dream about You-Know-Who?"

"What does that have to do with Fred?" George asked.

"Yes to the first," Ginny said shakily, reluctantly letting go of Fred and backing off a few feet to wipe her face free of tears. Her hands were trembling. "It was – second year, it was Riddle, in the Chamber…he said that you had died, Fred, that you were fighting and made a joke and you were k-killed because you weren't p-paying attention. I didn't want to b-believe him, but then I t-turned and saw you, and you were just l-lying there, n-not moving, and—" Ginny started to cry again. Harry moved over to her, and then made her sit down on his bed. She leaned on his shoulder, tears still slipping down her face quietly.

The twins had alarmed and distressed expressions on their faces, each equally upset trying to imagine Fred no longer counting among the living.

"But it was just a dream," George said softly.

"It wasn't real," Fred added.

"It won't ever happen," George said assertively, almost glaring at them, as though daring them to say that it would.

Ron, meanwhile, was impressed that his sister had come up with a lie so quickly. Granted, she had merely stretched the truth and played it off as a dream, but she had done it so fast and come up with a reason that she and Hermione were in the boys' room in the process. He knew that he probably couldn't have done that.

Hermione was staring at the floor, feeling vaguely guilty over lying to the twins and also not wanting to look at them, for she was sure that _she _would start crying, too, and where would that lead to? She shook her head gently and looked up and over to Ginny.

"Anyway," she said. "We were just leaving, weren't we, Gin?"

The older brunette walked to the bed, grabbed Ginny's hand, and half-dragged the petite redhead to the door. "We'll talk later, all right guys? In the meantime, you might want to get dressed…charming as it is to see you in pajamas, you really should put on some actual clothes."

And with that last remark, the two girls left the room. Behind them they heard embarrassed splutters from the boys.

They shared some rather watery grins and high-fived each other.

* * *

A/N: This chapter is longer than the other two put together. Hopefully they will continue to be this long and I won't take so long to update?


	4. Breakfast With Dead Men

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR, not me (sad face).**

The day, however 'well' it had started off, only got more difficult.

After they had all gotten cleaned up and dressed, and the twins had left to the kitchen, the time travelers were readying themselves to face their second obstacle/challenge: walking into a room of mostly dead people and not giving away their secret.

"Wizards aren't supposed to mess with time," Hermione whispered to them as they trooped down the stairs. "It's probably for the best we don't let them know what happened."

"Easy enough," Ron muttered back. "Seeing as we don't know exactly what happened ourselves…"

Hermione gently smacked the back of her boyfriend's head. "Yes, I realize that we don't know _how _this happened, but what I'm saying is that we mustn't let them know it _has_ – and I know you understood that the first time I said that! If we let them know too soon or maybe even if they find out at all, it could mess up the timeline completely!"

Harry nearly stopped walking. "You can't honestly mean we're not going to change anything, right?" he asked incredulously. "I mean, just by being back here in the first place, even if we try not to do anything different, will cause _some _things to change, so why not just go the whole way and try to change things for the better?"

Hermione sighed, and as they stepped onto the second-to-last landing, she abruptly shooed them all down the hallway and into a vacant room. "Until we _know _what's going on, as much as we can figure out, we'll discuss things to change, when to change them, and whom, if anyone, we're going to tell about…this. Just try not to give anything away until then, all right? I know it'll be hard, but don't."

So it was with great trepidation they all walked down the final flight of stairs and entered the kitchen. As their group's collective sometimes-great-sometimes-terrible luck would have it, there weren't very many people in the kitchen. However, the ones that _were _in it were Molly, Arthur, the twins…and Remus and Sirius.

Harry felt his throat close up as he laid eyes on them, and he had to hastily blink his eyes to prevent the tears that were welling up there from overflowing.

"Would you four help set the table?" Molly called out from where she was supervising several different pots and pans. "I've almost finished preparing a quick breakfast for the lot of us before we can start cleaning again."

With an effort, Harry tore his gaze away from his godfather and surrogate godfather, and walked to the cabinet on the far wall to pull out some dishes. Ginny silently joined him as Ron and Hermione got out silverware and glasses for drinks.

"Strange, isn't it?" Ginny muttered under her breath.

"And sad," Harry sighed back. Then the two turned around and started to lay the dishes on the table, beginning at the end where they were and slowly moving towards the head of the table, where Remus and Sirius were poring over a copy of the _Daily Prophet._

"Morning, Harry," Sirius said absently as the raven-haired teen set a plate down next to his godfather.

The twin monsters of grief and guilt rose within Harry at the sound of Sirius' voice, not allowing him to speak, so he merely nodded in return.

It was jarring. In _his _time, his _proper_ time, they were both dead. The pain of their deaths had scabbed over, and he thought that he had managed to mostly move on from them, but he found now that no, it had never completely healed. Talking to them would especially be difficult seeing as how the last time he had talked to the two of them, they had been spirits brought back by the Resurrection Stone so that he could convince himself to walk to his death.

With a sudden pang, Harry realized that when he and the others had come through time, they had left all others behind them…including little Teddy Lupin. Harry could at least take comfort from the fact that if nothing else, Andromeda would be taking care of him. He shied away from thinking of what the remaining Weasleys' reactions to the news of their disappearance would be…three gone from their blood family, with one of them dead and two mysteriously vanished, plus four others that were counted among their family disappearing as well? He would not wish that on any mother, but especially not on Mrs. Weasley.

"Good morning, Harry," Remus said, looking up from the newspaper. He frowned concernedly at the teen. "Are you all right?" he asked. "You look a bit shaken up…"

Sirius looked up at that, peering into Harry's face with worry.

Harry forced a smile onto his face, though he knew it looked more like a grimace and would do absolutely nothing to convince Remus or Sirius that he was fine.

"I'm as well as can be expected," he said, and mentally groaned as his voice came out slightly thick. "I didn't sleep very well last night – nightmares made their rounds to all of us." He paused for a moment. "Except for Fred and George…they probably dream of pranking and not much else…"

"Oi!" the twins shouted from the other side of the room, not even attempting to pretend they weren't listening in, but feeling slightly worried that they had _all _apparently had bad dreams.

Harry grinned at them tiredly, and then directed his attention back to the two men sitting in front of him.

"Nightmares?" Sirius asked, frowning. "How bad?"

"They were – okay, how do I put this? Just…really, _really _bad," the raven-haired teen said, sadness creeping into his tone. He sat down and rubbed at his eyes, still not quite adjusted to seeing these two most definitely _alive_ men in front of him.

"What were they about?" Remus inquired gently. The werewolf could tell even before Sirius had asked how bad they had been that they were something that had deeply affected Harry, and they were bothering him even after waking up. Somehow he got the feeling that they weren't the usual nightmares Harry had said he'd been having about the graveyard.

"I – they—," Harry started helplessly. He looked at Hermione, who had finished up with the drinks and was approaching fast. She had heard what was being said and nodded the slightest bit to say he could talk about it after twisting the truth a bit, though her eyes told him to be _very _careful.

Remus and Sirius didn't miss the byplay, but they didn't quite know what it meant, and they were more focused on Harry in the first place than wondering what expressions Hermione's eyes were making.

Harry took a deep, calming breath, and ran his fingers through his hair (causing nostalgia to rise in Remus and Sirius) before answering. "It was about the war – this war, the upcoming war, and…a lot of people are going to die, aren't they?" he said helplessly. "I mean, people always die in a war, on both sides, and because I was thinking about that…I dreamed that I lost people close to me, like you two…and the whole thing, it seemed so _real_…and it terrifies me that it might actually _happen_. All of the people here, we're targets, and from the way the Ministry's acting they sure as hell won't try to protect us…" The raven-haired teen shuddered slightly as he trailed off.

"It was just a dream, Harry," Sirius said calmly, resting a hand on the teenager's arm as he looked over at Remus, who was sitting with a thoughtful expression on his face, mixed with a bit of compassion and understanding.

"Those kinds of dreams are the ones that are the most frightening, aren't they?" the werewolf let out a few seconds after Sirius's proclamation. "The ones where your deepest fears are shown, where the things you most dread will happen to the people you love, and you can't tell they're not real until you wake up. And even then…even when it's all over, you're scared that it will come to pass in reality."

Harry nodded, eyes shadowed.

"Those types of dreams are bad," Sirius aid grimly. "Horrible and terrifying. But in the end, it _was _just a dream. It may make you feel off-kilter for a bit, but you've got to convince yourself it wasn't real."

"As for our deaths in it…" Remus said, trailing off at the end. He sighed. "Harry, we won't lie to you. This _will _become a war again, and people _will _die. There's no way to prevent that. _We _may die as well," the werewolf admitted. "You have to understand. There are no guarantees that any of us will survive, even if we win."

"We have to keep trying, though," Sirius cut in. "Even if some of us _do _die, the rest will keep fighting until this is all done with, one way or another."

Harry nodded again, accepting everything the two had said to him gratefully. He had already known the odds, and had _seen them die_, but their words comforted him nonetheless. He could tell that the other time travelers had been listening to their hushed conversation and had drawn the same comfort he felt from it.

Of course, they all disregarded the little tidbit of believing that these particular "nightmares" weren't real, but stored it as future advice for other nightmares of the similar ilk that did not quite pertain to the future.

"Breakfast is done!" Molly called out cheerfully, having missed the solemn conversation while cooking. She levitated a pan of bacon and sausages to the table, followed closely by a plate of pancakes and a bowl of fresh fruit. The butter, syrup, and powdered sugar were already on the table.

"It looks delicious, Molly," Remus said, smiling at the woman.

"Dig in, then," she said, gesturing at everything and giving a wide smile in return to Remus. "Feel free to eat as much as you want – it wouldn't take too long to whip up some more should others come by and be hungry."

The meal was eaten slowly and savoured, but was rather quiet. The time travelers weren't talking; Remus and Sirius were watching them all (having latched onto the fact that nightmares had come to all of them and not letting it go); Molly and Arthur talked quietly to each other. The twins were the only ones that made any _real _noise, trading jokes and witty remarks back and forth in an attempt to cheer up their younger sister, whose eyes were still the faintest bit red when you _really _looked at them, along with the other teens, who the twins now knew were shaken up from their _own _nightmares, whatever in Merlin's name _those _were.

"All right," Molly said, clapping her hands together after the group had finished eating and removed all the dishes from the table, placing them in the sink. "We can work further upstairs today, try to finish up some of the partially cleaned rooms there, and then call it a day's work – that will surely be enough. We've been working so hard…you lot deserve a break."

Harry felt like banging his head against the table violently, and he could tell by their expressions that the others felt the same – they had all managed to shove the unpleasant thought of having to engage Grimmauld Place in war again to the back of their minds. It had been so much nicer when they just allowed Kreacher to work to his heart's content—

Harry suddenly felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. _The locket_. Kreacher had it, or it was still in the drawing room, and he couldn't remember well enough to know if they had already cleaned out the drawing room, though he was pretty sure they _had_.

'_This is bad,'_ he thought to himself as they all made their way upstairs. _'We have to get the locket ASAP and destroy it…but the sword is in Dumbledore's office and the basilisk is obviously still in the Chamber of Secrets, so we'd have to wait a few weeks anyway…oh, not good…I __really__ don't fancy the idea of having to either hide or wear the locket for __weeks__ here, not with what happened last time or risking the chance of Kreacher stealing it back or something…but there's really nothing that can be done, is there?'_

The raven-haired teen sighed to himself. _'This time travel thing is so __complicated__…well, at least we'll have plenty of free time this afternoon to discuss what to do…'_

Dragging himself out of his thoughts as they reached the uppermost landing, Harry subtly mouthed, "We _really _need to get together and talk," to the rest of the time travelers.

They all nodded slightly in agreement, and then stepped into the first room they were going to help finish cleaning with simultaneous moans of disgust.

* * *

A/N: Hey, one month's better than seven, right? Sorry, guys. I'm so mean to y'all. I had it written up for weeks, I just couldn't force myself to type it up...oh, and I also apologize to those of you who read my teenage angst last author's note. I took all of your advice into consideration and shall attempt to make this non-cliche, and not ridiculous, and not beat myself up about my writing. Sorry I'm such a perfectionist sometimes! It's only with my writing...(I deleted the teenage angst, just in case you were wondering.)

In other news: Merlin, going to school on a Saturday is _weird_. We had to go to make up for snow days, and it was completely surreal...and then I had a one-day weekend. Great.

As always (as of now), please tell me if there are any glaring errors in here, so that I can fix them.


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